Ketari by-election tomorrow will be an important test of   the Barisan Nasional’s new-found 911 “terror” card and the Gerakan’s dirty politics in copying the Razaleigh tengkolok scare tactics of 1990

(Petaling Jaya,  Saturday): The Ketari by-election tomorrow will be an important test of the Barisan Nasional’s new-found 911 “terror” card and the Gerakan’s dirty politics in copying the Razaleigh tengkolok scare tactics of 1990 to try to character-assassinate  the DAP leaders as having betrayed the  Chinese community in supporting the Islamic state of PAS. 

Right from the beginning of the Ketari by-election,  the  DAP joined issue with these two Barisan Nasional "trump cards" by  making clear our  unequivocal stand as Malaysian nationalists on both questions by:

• condemning terrorism and extremism of any form, declaring our full support to the government to ensure that the September 11 terrorist events cannot happen in Malaysia - but warning the people that they must not allow the Barisan Nasional government to use the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States to justify new clampdowns on democracy and human rights and suppress  the aspirations of the citizens of a multi-racial, multi-lingual, multi-cultural and multi-religious Malaysia for just and fair political, economic, educational, social and   cultural  nation-building policies.
• declaring  the DAP’s unswerving commitment to the 44-year “social contract” of our forefathers from the three communities embodied in the 1957 Merdeka Constitution, reaffirmed by the peoples of Sabah and Sarawak on the formation of Malaysia in 1963, that ours  is a democratic, secular, multi-religious, tolerant and progressive nation  with Islam as the official religion but not an Islamic state - and that DAP rejects  both the Islamic State of PAS and the Islamic State of UMNO as announced by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamad at the Gerakan national conference on September 29, 2001.

The Ketari by-election result tomorrow will demonstrate whether the Barisan Nasional’s 911 “terror” card, together with its politics of  lies, money and electoral abuses, will drown out the politics of reason of the DAP - and that irrationality and unreason will be the ruling predominant forces in  the post-911Malaysian political scenario.

(30/3/2002)